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Atavus captured the 2017 women’s club 7s national championship with a 26-14 win over the San Diego Surfers. The Seattle program went undefeated on the weekend in route to the title.

After beating Minneapolis and Orlando, Atavus had its closest game of the tournament with Northern Virginia. It held of Nova 21-17 and advanced as the first seed in pool D. Seattle then outlasted ARPTC and Life West to reach the final where they took on the San Diego Surfers.

The first have was incredibly competitive with both teams showing their defensive prowess. San Diego had the first possession of the game and worked its way methodically down the field. Atavus defended well and eventually earned a penalty in its own half.

Atavus took a quick tap and managed to go deep into San Diego territory before earning another penalty. The ball went left and into the hands of Jenine Duncan. She powered through the San Diego defense and with two defenders dragging on her dotted down for an early 7-0 lead.

San Diego responded with a couple minutes remaining in the first half. Tia Blythe found a gap but did not have the speed to go to the distance. She slithered in between two tacklers and from the ground offloaded to Kelsi Stockert. The former Atavus player bounced off the sweeper and went in under the posts for a 7-7 tie. That’s how it went into the break.

The Seattle team scored immediately in the second half. After fielding the kickoff, the ball went left to Erica Legaspi with space wide. She outflanked the defense and used a nifty inside step to beat the sweeper. After going 60 meters, she had enough pace to scramble through pursuit for a try under the posts.

Trailing 14-7, the Surfers struck back through a controversial score. San Diego busted through the line and Megan Foster was taken down with a high tackle just outside the Atavus 22.The referee awarded a penalty try for a long distance and sent the Atavus player to the sin bin for two minutes.

Despite being down a player, Atavus dominated the next two minutes and managed to outflank the San Diego defense. Lauren Barber cruised in down the right sideline to extend the lead to 19-14. The tough conversion snuck in off the post for a 21-14 lead.

The Surfers received the ensuing kickoff and immediately lost possession with a forward pass. Unfortunately, for the Surfers, they would not see anymore possession. Seattle maintained the ball and scored a try at the death to seal the national title.